In mid-May, Fangjin Media (Beijing), a Chinese movie company, signed an agreement with the directors of Marvel franchise last two movies to produce a Captain China character and movie.
Those are the type of superhero movies that Chinese audience have been seeking instead of the current practice of Hollywood producers to cast a token Chinese actor in a movie to ensure its box office success. After all, China has become a major movie market and a film’s exhibition in the Asian giant determines often its global success.
However, the pandering by the western movie producers has insulted Chinese moviegoers, reported China Entertainment News. A perfect example of this is Chinese actress Fan BingBing’s appearance in “Iron Man 3,” a Marvel movie. She actually was seen only in the version of the film edited for Chinese viewers but excluded in the version shown in other countries.
In “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” Fan was included in the worldwide release but her part was very short and she only uttered one line. Given these trend, Chinese audience call such characters “flower vases” since they are only decorations in the movie.
Besides the flower vase issue, Hollywood has also been accused of whitewashing Asian roles by casting Caucasian actors such as Matt Damon’s role of a Chinese warrior in “The Great Wall,” noted Fortune.
To solve this problem, Qui Jie, executive of a Chinese studio, suggested giving Chinese actors a “meaningful and proper role” which adds value to the film. “We understand that a Chinese character will not be a lead role in the film. But if you can at least do that, the local audiences will not criticize it,” he said.